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Deschler's Precedents: About
Lewis Deschler, parliamentarian of the U.S. House of Representatives
from 1928 to 1974, was authorized by Public Law 89-90 "to compile
and prepare for printing the parliamentary precedents of the House of
Representatives, together with such other materials as may be useful in
connection therewith, and an index digest of such precedents and other
materials." These materials were prepared and published as House
Document 94-661 in accordance with Public Law 94-551.
As stated in the preface to Deschler’s Precedents, "[t]hese
volumes set forth and analyze the modern precedents of the House of Representatives....
It is the function of these volumes to review the precedents from 1936
through the first session of the 93d Congress, except as otherwise noted."
The compilation has since been expanded to include precedents developed
beyond the 94th Congress. By law, the precedents must be updated
every two years.
Since 1976, Deschler’s Precedents has been prepared under the supervision
of Wm. Holmes Brown, Parliamentarian from 1974 to 1994, as is reflected
in the name of volumes 10 through 16 (Deschler-Brown Precedents).
Deschler’s Precedents currently consists of 33 chapters, which,
the preface explains, "have been arranged in the approximate sequential
order in which the subjects covered occur or arise in the House."
Each chapter is subdivided into sections, which constitute the document
level on GPO Access. A section may be as short as a single page,
or it may exceed 200 pages. In addition, the first chapter is preceded
by introductory materials, such as the authorizing legislation for the
compilation, the preface, acknowledgements, tributes, and a table of abbreviations
and terms; these materials are also divided into sections and presented
as individual documents. All documents are available as ASCII text and
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
Volume-to-chapter correspondence of the fifteen volumes of Deschler's
Precedents.
| Volume |
Chapter(s) |
| 1 |
1-6 |
| 2 |
7-9 |
| 3 |
10-14 |
| 4 |
15-17 |
| 5 |
18-20 |
| 6 |
21 |
| 7 |
22-25 |
| 8 |
26 |
| 9 |
27 |
| 10 |
28: Sections 1-24 |
| 11 |
28: Sections 25-end, plus index |
| 12 |
29: Sections 1-34 |
| 13 |
29: Sections 35-end, plus index |
| 14 |
30 |
| 15 |
31 |
| 16 |
32-33 |
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